Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 17, 1993 TAG: 9301170039
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
LONG WAY FROM TECH TO AFC TITLE GAME
In nine National Football League seasons with three teams, Tony Paige has hustled and muscled his way through 136 games.None of those compare to today's AFC Championship Game for the Miami Dolphins' fullback. A Super Bowl opportunity is knocking at Joe Robbie Stadium, and Paige will get as pushy as necessary as the Dolphins try to beat the Buffalo Bills to the door.
"We're one win from the game every young football player dreams about playing," Paige said recently from his suburban Miami home. "Chances like this don't just happen. Getting here is a desire you have at a very young age, but desire alone doesn't get you there."
The Buffalo-Miami final is more than an AFC East rivalry rematch for Paige. The former Virginia Tech back will be going against his more celebrated former teammate, Bruce Smith, the Bills' five-time Pro Bowl defensive lineman. Despite telecast reports otherwise, Paige and Smith were not roommates on the Blacksburg campus, however.
"Bruce and I were teammates and we are good friends," Paige said. "We'll talk this week, and we'll probably get together the day before the game. I'll probably go to the airport to pick him up, and we might go to eat together. On the field, we don't talk. That's time for business."
Before the game, Paige will remind Smith that it is his turn, too.
While the Bills have lost the past two Super Bowls and played in four of the past five AFC title games, Miami is making its first AFC final appearance since the 1985 season. After three years each with the New York Jets, the Detroit Lions and Miami, Paige, in only his third season as an every-game starter, has his first date in the NFL's final four.
"With the Jets, we made the playoffs two years, we just didn't make it this far," Paige said of wild-card teams in '85-86. "In Detroit, we never won while I was there. Two years ago, we made the playoffs here" as a wild-card team that lost to Buffalo.
"These opportunities, you have to make the most of them. You play as hard as you can. Every single play can be critical. You don't know what's going to happen.
"Maybe we only won five of our last 10, but we won the AFC East. That's just the way it is. We started off 6-0, but toward the end of the season Buffalo lost to the Colts and the Jets that enabled us to hang in there. There's such great parity in the league . . . so a play here or there can make a difference."
Paige, 30, finished the regular season with 48 receptions, giving him 140 in three seasons for the Dolphins. Although he is known for his pass-catching ability out of the backfield, his primary job is to block for quarterback Dan Marino and Miami's improved running game.
"Tony Paige is a wonderful football player," said Bob Trumpy, the NBC analyst who will work today's telecast. "Anybody who could bounce around among teams like Tony has and not only still have his sanity but play with the emotion he does, you have to admire that.
"He's never gotten a lot of headlines, but what he does is one of the dirtiest jobs in the game. He's only asked to slam his body into different linebackers, bigger linebackers, every week. Not everybody can do that like he does."
The 5-foot-11, 235-pound Washington native said the push toward his potential came in the goading he received on the Tech practice field from Billy Hite, who still coaches the Hokies' running backs.
"In the short time I was around Billy, I think he did more to make me into the player I am now than anyone that has coached me," Paige said. "He saw the potential I had, and he knew how to get it out of me. He used to p--- me off on purpose, and then I'd go out and try to tear somebody's head off."
Paige recalled one day when he was a Tech freshman and starting fullback Scott Dovel was injured.
"Billy made me take every rep in practice. He pushed me and chewed me out. As much as anything, that took my play to another level," he said.
Paige also remembers a practice when he was the Hokies' starting fullback in 1982. Two other fullbacks were hurt, so Hite made Paige run all 48 plays in a scrimmage.
"I was really ticked off," Paige said. "But Billy knew I needed some mental toughness. He spent a lot of time with me that paid off later."
Perhaps, those hours were just payback time for Hite, who went to his high school, DeMatha Catholic, to recruit Paige, linebacker Mike Johnson (now starring with Cleveland) and defensive back Derek Carter for Tech.
"I went to Tech because of Billy Hite," Paige said. "Mike and Derek, too. I was going to Boston College and changed my mind at the last minute. Mike was going to Pitt and Derek to Indiana.
"We took a look at Billy and decided we had to sign. That's when his hair went from brown to gray, when he worried about whether we'd sign, and he drank 12 of those 32-ounce cups of coffee a day. He looked terrible. So, we signed."
When Paige left Tech in 1984 as the Jets' sixth-round draft pick, his goal was the same as many NFL rookies - to survive four years, become vested in the pension plan and receive severance pay. He was a holdout with the Jets in 1987, and they released him during the players' strike. Paige signed with Detroit, then moved to Miami as a Plan B free agent in 1990.
"I'm in my ninth year, and I'm having more fun than I ever had," Paige said. "I've got two years left on my new contract after this season, so that will make 11 years. Who knows whether I'll play after that?"
Paige is prepared for those days. He works in the off-season for a financial planning company in Rockville, Md. In the coming months, he will take the exam to become a certified financial planner. Paige also is active in community service; last year, he was given the club's Nat Moore Award for volunteer work and was nominated for the NFL Players Association's Whizzer White Award for community service.
Whether Paige blocks or speaks, people seem to get the message. So, about four weeks ago, he stood to talk at a team meeting.
"I told the guys that we may not ever play on a football team this good again," Paige said. "You can't take something like that for granted. You can't count on being here next year or the year after.
"For our team, this is a chance to reach the Super Bowl. For me, personally, this game is the opportunity of a lifetime."